Yisrael’s Challenge to Moral Relativism

Dear Friends,

There are many people within the western world who
claim that there are no absolute truths, and that
each person is free to decide what is truth. This
view is known as "moral relativism" – the belief
that no opinion or value is ultimately better than
another, since it's all "relative." According to the
followers of this belief, it simply depends on your
point of view. Yes, one person may feel that
"tzedakah" – helping those in need - is his truth;
however, another person may feel that being a miser
is his truth. From the perspective of the moral
relativist, who is to say which is better?

According to this philosophy, each person can be his
own god and create his own truth. For example, when
some Jewish professors on college campuses tried to
help their students understand the evil of the
Holocaust, there were students who responded:
The Germans of that period had another point of view
– another truth. It is therefore wrong to make any
distinction by saying one view is good or one is
evil. It all depends on your point of view!

It is no wonder that some progressive activists have
begun to join Torah-committed activists in
challenging the philosophy of moral relativism which
has become popular within certain progressive
circles. I would therefore like to share with you a
statement of protest from an article in the Forward,
a progressive Jewish newspaper. It appeared on March
18th, 2005, and the author is Joshua Halberstam, a
New York writer who taught philosophy at New York
University and at Teacher's College, Columbia
University. The title is, "Will the Left Finally
Talk About What Matters?" The article discusses how
many progressive activists have abandoned the
concept of absolute ethical and moral values, and he
writes:

Underlying this endemic inhibition to assert
moral judgments is a pervasive, crude relativism.
Perhaps nowhere is this stance more rooted than on
the college campus, both among both professors and
their students. Ethical relativists stipulate that
no ethical position can be objectively true or
false, for all values are simply reflections of
one's culture (or, in some versions, one's personal
taste). From the presumption, "It is true that
everyone has an equal right to an opinion," they
conclude blithely, "Therefore everyone's opinion is
equally true." Such simplistic relativism is not
only philosophically vacuous, but also socially
pernicious. Not all points of view deserve respect.
In fact, genuine moral equivalence is rarely the
case — some claims are more legitimate than others.

The Torah opposes the concept of moral relativism.
To understand this idea on a deeper level, we need
to discuss the argument used by the serpent in the
Garden of Eden, when it persuaded the human being to
violate the Divine mandate by eating from the
forbidden fruit. The serpent said:

"You will surely not die; for God knows that on the
day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis.
3:4).

Through this argument, human beings are tempted to
become like God, and thereby decide for themselves
what is "good and evil." In this particular story,
the human being decides that what is "good" is what
gratifies the desires of the body, and what is
"evil" is what denies the human being the immediate
gratification of these desires (Genesis 3:6).

The first human couple lost the Garden when they
forgot that there are eternal and absolute values
which express the higher and life-giving truth of
the Compassionate One. We, the people called
Yisrael, are to find the way back to the Garden by
following a spiritual path which connects us to the
higher and life-giving Divine truth. In this way,
we proclaim the universal message of our name:
The Compassionate One is above all.

Through the inspiration of our spiritual example,
the peoples of the earth will also gain this higher
consciousness, as it written:

"It will happen in the end of days: The Mountain of
the Temple of the Compassionate One will be firmly
established as the head of the mountains, and it
will be exalted above the hills, and all the nations
will stream to it. Many peoples will go and say,
'Come, let us go up to the Mountain of the
Compassionate One, to the Temple of the God of
Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways and we will
walk in His paths.' For from Zion will go forth
Torah, and the word of the Compassionate One from
Jerusalem." (Isaiah 2:2,3)

Have a Good and Sweet Shabbos,
Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen (See below)

A Related Teaching:

When we, the people called Yisrael, fulfill our
universal mission, we will merit to experience the
fulfillment of the following prophecy of comfort
which we chant on this Shabbos:

"Violence shall no longer be heard of in your land,
nor plunder and calamity in your borders; but you
shall call God’s salvation your protective walls,
and the praise of His deeds your gates. You shall no
longer have need of the sun for light of day, nor
for brightness the moon to illuminate for you;
rather the Compassionate One shall be unto you an
eternal light, and ended shall be the days of your
mourning. And your people, they are all righteous;
forever will they inherit the Land; a branch of My
planting, My handiwork, for Me to glory in. The
smallest shall increase a thousandfold, and the
least into a mighty nation; I am the Compassionate
One; in its time I will hasten it." (Isaiah
60:18-22)